Cold Case Files: Killer CONFESSIONS - Most Viewed Moments | A&E

foreign dating in high school Tim would bring Kelly out to the farm I really do believe that the two of them would eventually be married that they would be a couple for life chairman Kelly we're going to go to a wedding reception at the Concord house Tim and Kelly get to the Concord house at approximately 10 30 pm they're there for approximately half an hour 45 minutes Witnesses say that Tim had a beer and Kelly had a soda during the time they were there and there are witnesses that see them leave the next morning get up and get work done except when you got up in the morning Tim wasn't there instantly there was a level of concern we called Kelly's mom and said did they stay there she said no I drove up to the Concord house to look Tim's car was still there the door wasn't quite shut and this wallet was still in the car from there on we finally realized Tim and Kelly are are gone in the first four days they were talking to all the employees from the Concord house we're talking to wedding guests one consistent thing that was reported was that there was this dark dirty van that had been in the parking lot one witness specifically recalled the van taking off you know sort of in a suspicious fashion quick way the Concord house itself was right next to the interstate there's a big parking lot there's not a lot of lighting or anything out there if you were intent on abducting somebody all you had to do is wait for the right moment [Music] had seen something as he was driving they caught his eye a pair of pants just like Kelly had been wearing on the night that she disappeared both the left and the right leg are completely cut from the ankle all the way up to the waist so in other words the pants could have still been on her body but they had been cut away it just magnified what I had thought all along that someone had definitely raped her over the course of 10 days multiple pieces of clothing belonging to Kelly are found along the roadway within a six mile radius of the Concord house as well as about a dozen pieces of rope with various knots tied in it squirrel hunters from Milwaukee are out in the Ixonia Wisconsin area which is approximately seven miles from the Concord house while they're walking through a wooded area they stumble across a body the body was badly decomposed approximately 100 yards away they locate a male body is fully clothed and appears to be the same clothing that Tim was reported to have been wearing on August 9 1980. most possibly strangled based on damage and insect activity around the throat area so then these pieces of rope we're finding along the roadsides become extremely significant there's the regular square knot but there's also half hitches 12 hitches bowling knots this is somebody with knowledge of not tying somebody that's been in the Navy or the military or in the trades like a carpenter maybe a painter it's not going to just be your everyday person that's going to tie these types of knots the case remains cold for more than two decades the heck family is forced to move on without their oldest son [Music] I was eight years old at the time Tim and Kelly went missing so when I first was elected district attorney I was well aware of this case and I wanted to know what happened to Tim and Kelly knowing what a big case this was after being unsolved for so long it immediately became my number one goal to solve this case at that time DNA is becoming more and more popular the DNA located on Kelly's pants and underwear was from seminal fluid one evening I received a phone call it was a female who identifies herself as April she said I think my dad could be responsible for Tim and Kelly I think he killed them and she said his name is Edward Wayne Edwards she tells me about a book that he had written that she said would explain more about her her father back in the early 70s Edwards appears on numerous talk shows and game shows with this book about his life as a master Criminal in the late 60s Edwards was on the FBI 10 most wanted list he was a suspect in a double homicide in Portland Oregon as I read the book what was so interesting was he exhibited all of the classic signs of the stereotypical signs of a serial killer he was a bad weather he had an affinity for starting fires he was extremely controlling for some serial killers the need to put on a normal face to interact with members of society and have access to victims is very important in fact if they looked unusual or weird or bizarre they might not get to approach victims in the way that they need to in addition to that Edward's daughter April had told me her dad was in the military that it had been dishonorably discharged from the military so at Edwards knows how to tie these knots I had him on my suspect list Edwards was interviewed in early September of 1980 he did not know anything about Timber Kelly's disappearance the one thing that stuck out to me was that he had a broken nose he said it was a deer hunting incident that caused the rifle to kick back and cause the broken nose that seemed odd to me gone deer hunting in Wisconsin is November not in August once I found out where Edwards had lived I talked to the landlord that took care of the house he said that Edwards lived in that house for a brief time and then moved to another state shortly after The Disappearance of Tim and Kelly Edwards had a van he kept a 357 revolver in the van this van adds up with the van that was spotted that night everything was making sense I think I know what happened to Tim and Kelly Edwards was waiting in the parking lot Kelly fit the profile he was looking for Tim being a strong farm boy got a good swing in on Edwards causing the broken nose and that's when Tim was stabbed there's no telling what happened in the van but we know that Kelly was raped and strangled to death [Music] he was in a wheelchair on oxygen very overweight and not in very good health throughout the entire time that we spoke with him he acted very nonchalant like it didn't matter that we were there at all for some serial killers it is a game give it edwards's age it might have been this was his last opportunity to manipulate law enforcement when I asked him to provide a sample of his DNA so that we could test it he said that he had no problem doing that he thinks he's smarter than us after 29 years he's thinking what DNA are we going to have how are we going to prove this turns out it's a match during the final hour or two of the interview we asked him if he could explain the seminal fluid DNA being on Kelly's clothes so then he comes up with the most unbelievable story all right I had sex with her you had sex with a young lady who died yes okay that explains a lot consensual with me yes oh yes not not forcible enough oh no no no no no no no it was consensual Tim and Kelly were joined at the hip Kelly Drew's not going to go off and willingly have sex with at Edwards in a cornfield I went back to see if maybe there was something he said that I didn't pick up on or maybe there were certain movements he made to tell me when he was lying boyfriend as I'm watching the video something struck me he said something sort of under his breath we probably rewounded you know a thousand times trying to make sure that we heard what we heard and after listening to it repeatedly and having many others listen to it repeatedly everyone agreed that what he said is damn it I killed her to hear him say damn it I killed her it's a goosebump moment ultimately he pleads guilty to killing Tim and Kelly Edwards confesses to killing his foster son Danny Edwards was an over the road truck driver that traveled to California in the late 60s because of this some people believe Edward Wayne Edwards is the Zodiac Killer some of the links include the fact that Edwards was a Drifter and he could have been in California at this time the fact that Edwards killed couples and that the Zodiac Killer also killed couples symbols that are used to sign off on the Zodiac letters consist of 13 symbols Edward Edwards is 13 letters and his birth name of Charles Murray is 13 letters as well on a cool Wednesday afternoon 24 year old Lisa ziegert shows up on time as always for work at Britain's card and gift shop that night had just popped into the store just to check in just to say hi just to catch up we were talking about her being a teacher Lisa was student teaching during the day and then she worked at Britney's at night and then we just did our cheerful normal hug and kiss goodbyes and and I went home the next morning early in in my day I hadn't been at work very long I got a phone call because Lisa had not shown up to work at the school and that was highly unusual minutes later Lynn's phone rings again it's another of Lisa's worried co-workers my friend worked at the same card and gift shop she had come for her morning shift and the store was found open Lisa's car was in the parking lot and her belongings were still on the counter my friend knew something was not right and that's when she called the police none of it made any sense I had to spend there the night before everything seemed normal Lynn came to my office and I said oh what are you doing here she said Mom Lisa's missing she didn't just leave she had a great rapport with kids she was drawing she's you know teaching she was happy with her boyfriend Blair she loved him and was convinced that you know someday that they would marry and have children she was just happy with her life police officers who responded right at the beginning knew that something very bad had happened Lisa's belongings were still inside the store under the counter there were no signs of a robbery the cash was still in the register today we might check video cameras and surveillance in the area but there was no such thing at the time but there were some signs that a struggle had occurred especially in the back office area it appears to be a spot of Blood on the top of the refrigerated door they checked the alley behind they checked businesses nearby dumpsters nearby see if there was any type of evidence that might have been found there and they started talking to people from the nearby businesses trying to track down anyone who might have witnessed something but investigators didn't find anything at the scene to suggest where Lisa had gone or who might have taken her the store was crawling with policemen the detectives asked was she having trouble with anybody we were unaware of anybody having any interest in harming Lisa I kept thinking why would anyone hurt her she was such a good person why wouldn't they just let her go on Easter Sunday in Agawam Resident was walking behind his property he saw in a clearing in the woods a partially naked body of a female yeah I go on police were able to immediately identify that body as long to Lisa zieger Lisa is found about a mile away from Britney's card shop the area was definitely off the beaten path it was on a clearing on kind of a dirt road Lisa had significant injuries including at least half a dozen knife wounds and there was evidence that she had been in a fight for her life the investigation reveals through autopsy in particular that Lisa's also sexually assaulted and there were multiple deposits of forensic evidence and a lot of effort went into determining that this was a single Source male DNA profile one of the witnesses also reported to investigators that he had seen a suspicious person lurking across the street before Lisa had been taken the guy was kind of moving back and forth in a strange way and he described him as a relatively tall Slenderman wearing a dark army style jacket I remember the night I went to visit her at the store the Thursday before she went missing there was a customer in the store and I remember him staying for a while I thought it was odd that he was hovering I remember her saying that you know he comes in sometimes to look at the Collectibles trying to you know figure out which one he wants to buy someone so I knew that the person was somebody that she had seen in the store before and I just remember him staying for a long time and wishing he would leave I did tell the police about the man in the store meant his description I remember him being a tall thin dark-haired man he was wearing a black jacket Kimberly's description is a near match to the man spotted outside the gift shop the night of the murder investigators did look at Lisa's boyfriend that would have been a standard procedure in any investigation that had been unsolved at that point when they talked to the boyfriend he did have an alibi Blair claims he was with his mother around the time Lisa was abducted but detectives still take a long hard look at him they empowered Blair's car they had him back and forth for questioning they took DNA there were no concerns about domestic violence by all accounts it sounded like a loving relationship I remember if the Laird went out to go look for her he didn't want to stop searching Blair just didn't want to give up investigators spoke to other people who would have been with him they were able to establish an alibi that ruled him out and later obtained a DNA profile from him that also ruled him out as a suspect DNA technology hadn't Advanced to the point where we could do some of the alternative testing methods that we can do today so if somebody refused to provide a DNA sample there wasn't really much that investigators could do there is no hope the case will be solved when the state's youngest ever district attorney Anthony galoney takes office we thought that DNA phenotyping could provide some characteristics of this individual like hair color and eye color skin tone that could narrow the course of our investigation in 2016 Diego Looney's team submits the Killer's 24 year old DNA sample for analysis short time later we were provided a composite sketch of an individual well this individual was Caucasian of European descent had brown or hazel eyes dark hair moderate skin tone we now knew that someone for instance with blonde hair and blue eyes was not the perpetrator someone who was of African-American descent or Asian descent was not the perpetrator so we were able to eliminate a substantial number of individuals I started looking at people who had been contacted by investigators in the past and who had refused to provide a DNA sample we went back to these people and just by explaining what we were doing a good percentage of them gave their DNA samples so at the end of that process we were able to identify 11 people and the grand jury voted to ask the court to compel these individuals to provide that sample around 6 30 I got a phone call that a woman had gone into a state police barracks in Westfield and had claimed that her boyfriend authored some documents that she provided to the Troopers they were a confessional and an apology to the ziegert family the essence of it was I took Lisa from her family and I will never forgive myself he says overtly they're going to tell you that 25 years ago I kidnapped raped and murdered a young woman and it's all true that struck me like a ton of bricks he wrote in the letter that he believed that what I had was a warrant for his DNA and that was going to put him in jail for life and that either he was going to kill himself or face the music Troopers interview the woman whose boyfriend wrote the letters she described him as docile he just seemed like an average nice guy she would never in a million years suspect would be capable of doing something like this he tells police her boyfriend is 48 year old Gary Shara Gary Shara was one of the 11 names that we had taken before the grand jury Gary Sheriff first becomes known to investigators in the context of Lisa ziegert's death in March of 1993 Gary Cheryl was one of dozens if not hundreds of men whose name had come up in a similar way his ex-wife said that he was very interested in the case he would always run into the room when the news came on about this case she also said that she thought that he had purchased a music box at Britney's card shop within the days or weeks before Lisa was taken [Music] investigators speak to Gary Shara in 2002 he refused to provide his DNA voluntarily at that time in 2008 investigators again speak with Gary Shara Garrett appeared to be very conscious of not providing a DNA sample either intentionally or accidentally he wouldn't touch the table no wouldn't take water that was provided to him he was asked to provide a DNA sample at that time and he refused his reasoning he was afraid of cloning there was certainly nothing illegal about one's refusal to provide DNA that didn't necessarily signal something nefarious but at the end of the day there just wasn't enough there for them to move forward with him as a suspect at that time we wrote a search warrant for his house received a number of items that were likely to have his DNA on them one item was his toothbrush toothbrush was taken to the state police crime lab I remember very vividly awaiting the results myself and my lieutenant were in the office and on my cell phone it lit up Concord Mass and that's where the lab is we learned that the profile developed from Gary's toothbrush match the single Source male DNA profile obtained in 1992 from Lisa ziegert's killer Gary Cheryl was charged with aggravated kidnapping aggravated rape and first-degree murder Shara pleads not guilty 27 years after Lisa's murder Sheriff finally breaks his silence only then in your own words why we're here we're here to make change to make a change of play guilty to murder in the first degree do you understand that yes sir I do Mr shower the court has accepted your plea ability to indictment 17-600 help One charging murder in the first degree the court orders you to serve a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole foreign [Music] is a constable for the Edmonton Police Service on a Sunday morning he and his partner rolled to Rundle Park Village where a six-year-old named Karine Punky Gustafson has gone missing my first thoughts were come on now it's a quiet morning perhaps this little girl went to the local convenience store with another friend and maybe there's trouble at home and she didn't want to go home right away I went up to the front door and knocked on the door and there I met Ray Gustafson tells Batman Karine was outside playing with her friend Lindsay who reported that a man had taken Korean between her mother coming home with the look of sheer Terror on her face and the information that we'd gleaned thus far I had thought in my own mind at that time that this was a Bonafide abduction to get a better handle on what he's dealing with Whitman walks to the back of the house where the girls were playing this suspect walks up comes right up to them and essentially just grabs onto Corrine takes her in his arms and then turns 180 degrees and heads directly back towards that walkway Lindsay is unable to provide a clear description of the abductor but Bittman gets what information he can out of the five-year-old we come around the corner and and ask our witness point directly the route that this fellow took point to us tell us show us and she walks us again through this little walkway between the units 147 148. about 50 feet down the walkway Bittman notices a dampened patch of mud and a footprint the most prominent Footwear impression that was inlaid in this mud appeared to be that of a sports shoe like somebody playing soccer or baseball would wear like a cleat Bittman takes a sketch of the impression and a door-to-door search of the neighborhood begins two days after Corrine Gustafson disappeared detectives Terry on and Al survey arrive at a trucking yard just outside Edmonton's city limits the body of a six-year-old girl lies in the mud near the back of the lot it is not immediately apparent to the detectives how Corinne Gustafson died it does appear however that she was killed somewhere else and then dumped among the flatbeds she had been redressed the way in which her her panties were on the way in which her pants were on the way The Witcher coat was put on all led us to believe that she was killed and raped somewhere else not far from the body investigators noticed tire tracks and cleat marks similar to those found at the Gustafson home an autopsy establishes that Korean was most likely smothered to death the me also discovers a single pubic hair on the victim's left and it was such a small piece that the DNA technology at the time didn't lend itself to developing a profile from that so the Hope was that have DNA technology advanced that we'd eventually get a profile from the partial root bulb on that pubic hair a January of 2000 Terry Alm has been working the Gustafson case for more than seven years nearly the last four by himself so we decided to have all of Cory's clothing and the swabs re-examined Alm hopes new technology will be able to identify and develop a usable DNA profile in the case he sends items of evidence to a private lab in North Carolina one year later on gets a call the unknown profile is uploaded into Canada's national DNA databank and hits to a band named Clifford slay a convicted sex offender and a name Terry Alm is familiar with Clifford slate come to our attention in May of 93 when he had sexually assaulted a young teenage girl and he was investigated at the time his family had Alibi him and he was sort of put on the back burner slave was one of thousands of suspects looked at during the 10-year Gustafson investigation now he takes center stage and is asked to explain why his semen was found on the close of a six-year-old we're not here to pass judgment on you we're only here to deal with the truth we knew from our background research that once Clifford was put into or painted into a corner where he thought the gig was up and and the deck was stacked against him that that he would tell the truth play is informed that DNA testing has matched his genetic profile to semen found on the victim's clothes the next day the suspect decides he wants to talk he is called and calculated he it's almost a matter of fact at that point with us there are no tears there is no emotion prepared for what's going to happen but yeah slay tells Godfrey that in September of 1992 he was having marital problems with his common law wife it was a combination of a lot of things going on burnt a bit of a fight and he wanted to punish her and potentially he wanted to locate her daughter and assault her slay could not locate his wife's daughter instead he left the apartment and got into his brother-in-law's car my classes he went out and it would appear he went out on the prowl or on the hunt I was so very angry I was pretty drunk I was actually going to turn around I turned into his apartment around town houses slay says he pulled into Rundle Park Village and noticed six-year-old Corrine Gustafson playing with her friend I made up a line that I was going to grab one the one closest to defense and he tucked her under his arm and uh put her in his vehicle and and took off I take him you know just another girl to I don't know there was this room that I found because they drew down his road I mean the thoughts were there but I didn't want to do anything so I just want to try to drive as far as I could understand when I realized that there was no traffic zooming up and some really secluded you know I just to perform assault having sex with him you know he's a terminology slay says he raped Corey in for some 10 minutes when he finished slay claims Korean was still alive and then he let her go I take note of the car took her and I put her on the back end of this part of the trailer Defenders would need to cover the tires I sat around there we know how she was found that was that's very clear how she was found and that was not that's not true clay fails to take responsibility for karine's murder Godfrey believes it to be a calculated move I think he tried to minimize his involvement I think he knew the difference between first degree murder and second-degree murder and potentially manslaughter so that his explanation was was made to try and fit something less than a first three murder conviction slay is arrested and booked on a charge of murder Jason track is the crown prosecutor for Alberta and responsible for trying Clifford sleigh for first degree murder he made the admission of abducting this child he also made the admission of sexually assaulting her we looked at all of the evidence and we believe that to a degree of 100 certainty not Beyond A Reasonable Doubt but to 100 certainty she was dead when he left as part of his case track plays slays confession in open court I guess I I returned just I didn't kill him I was very surprised when I heard that she had died it was putrid to listen to the tape of his confession and to hear this stuff coming from his mouth and trying to downplay his culpability in this crime the tape plays exactly as the prosecution had intended slay's words appearing to be both kallus and calculating if he was capable of empathy in a remorse he never would have committed such a crime but he's such a botched human being that he was able to do such an act the jury deliberates for one day and Returns the verdict track requested Slayers found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life in prison under Canadian law however he will be eligible to apply for parole in 25 years [Music] Paul savini is a detective with the Woonsocket police in April of 2003 he works the missing person's case of a local prostitute her name was Audrey Harris she was in her 40s a month after Audrey Harris goes missing her case remains unsolved when a second woman disappears off a wound socket street corner my partner and I were assigned a missing persons case on a Christine Dumont she was a 42 year old white female reported missing May 3rd of 2004. like Audrey Harris Christine Dumont is a woman on the edge a drug user who has worked the streets for years and is now missing Debbie Berger worries about her daughter Stacy I think she was looking for Fast Money and got up in the wrong situation and liked the cash but didn't like what she did in July of 2004 a mother's worst fears are realized when Stacy's boyfriend files a missing persons report with police he says Stacy's missing I says what are you talking about he said yes you didn't come home last night that's it it's like she disappeared off the face of the Earth people were missing we knew that they were arrested before for prostitution we know it's a high risk endeavor the pair dig into the three cases and quickly ID a pool of suspects we really had no other suspects other than a potential job we want to know everyone that's coming into the city picking up these prostitutes an anonymous call to the PD gives detectives a fresh lead ers information the information was a phone call Anonymous phone call that said we might want to speak with Jocelyn Martell I had a heroin addiction I did it because I needed the money for my drug addiction in July of 2004 Cold Case detectives sit down and listen as Martel talks about the night a trick almost turned deadly we pulled up I was walking on the sidewalk and uh he's like you want to make some money and I was like yeah you know we went into the house we spoke about money for sex I asked him where he wanted to go and as soon as I turned my back to him he put his arm around my neck and started choking me what I did was is I banged my head back on his head and we both fell backwards and when we both fell backwards I stuck my thumb in his eye and he let me go and I ran out the door Jocelyn survived the assault but never reported it to police it's unfortunate a lot of times they think that the police aren't going to help him because of the lifestyle they're in that's certainly not the case Jocelyn doesn't know her attacker's name but she remembers where he lives the caller of the house and she described the shot as the trim she described how she got in we were able to get that address run it through our computer system find out who lives there the house is rented by 33 year old Jeff male Hut he's nowhere to be found in our database not a ticket not an arrest male hot seems clean then detectives run his home address through their computers we did a computer check and then Eddie found that there was another case at that house that had happened several months earlier with another prostitute another prostitute who tells detectives about a John who tried to kill her come in have a drink so I sat at the kitchen table you know and we was talking everything like that I opened up a can of beer and I grabbed a napkin and when I went to turn back around he was behind me he comes up from behind gets her in a choke hold and she has a violent struggle with him she remembers that the point of almost losing Consciousness the man grabbed me with his forearm and had me like this in a Chokehold I could not breathe and I couldn't scream so I'm thinking oh my God I'm gonna die I'm gonna die she just screams and pleads for her life please please please he let me go you know I won't say anything to anybody he didn't say not one word to me and I knew at Adventure please I have a baby my money's in my pocketbook please just don't hurt me he just she says this gives him this cold steer and uh just tells her to leave and she walks out the apartment I don't know why he didn't kill me I don't know why he let me go he just said get the out of here I don't want to see you around here no more tees Morris is the second woman to allegedly be attacked by male hot and live to tell about it I think this guy's playing this game he's already choked two girls I mean Joe goal is a very very dangerous move you've tried it on these two obviously you might have tried it on other girls and maybe uh they didn't get away and that was our whole Theory so yeah we had a arrest warrant and our search warrant and we you know very hopeful to get it in on July 16th sergeants Lee and Nowak head to 221 Cato Street and slipped the cuffs on Jeff's mail hunt [Music] hi Jeff no idea no idea yeah [Music] I've never I've never had serious problem with prostituting my house now it's a game you go into that room in your sole purpose is to retrieve whatever he's hiding get this off your conscience it's going to it's going to what is I'm sorry what I've got no I've gotten a little physical yeah okay what do you usually do yeah I choked that's all I'm trying to get it okay maleheart admits to choking prostitutes but we'll go no further it's not it's never going too far it's never going I've never I've never killed anybody [Music] you never choked someone that didn't wake up no detectives aren't buying male hot story Lee switches gears and slides photos of three girls across the table I don't know any of you girls none of these are the ones that I that I had deposited that was a pretty quick look when I threw those three photos down there the three victims he had an immediate reaction you could see it all over his body his body language his Expressions he was very nervous and you know there was something there I mean I've never killed anybody he told us you guys think I killed these girls we never told them that the girls were dead we didn't know the girls were dead so that was a red flag for us that's when we really started hitting him a little hotter with uh you know the questions we were asking I hope you know the truth because [Music] detectives are walking male hot closer and closer to the very edge of a triple homicide it it was apparent that he was he was going to give it up I mean he was starting to cry he was shaking he would pour long unnatural pauses like he was thinking about what should I do Indonesia and we will get to the bottom whether or not you had these girls in your room in your house tears thought to will up in his eyes that you can't see on the the videotape but sitting there that's when you realize you know oh my God he's going to confess to this a little more than an hour into the interview male hot breaks your life will be over once you get this I know you know Batman I know you just pushed it too far what happened [Music] what happened you push it too far one night right things get out of hand foreign comes it's like oh my God he's really done this a million things are going through your mind your heart's racing your adrenaline's flowing we're rocking Dairy daring garbage bags garbage bags where I just dumped him in trash containers how did you put them in trash bags [Music] male Hut says he cut up each victim in his bathtub wrapped their body parts in black plastic bags and threw them in dumpsters I wanted to choke them myself I mean I could not believe that some a human being could do that to another human being just before 9 pm mail hot is coughed and led to a jail cell with confession in hand detectives believed their case is complete that is until the D.A decides the state needs more it's not enough to just say for somebody to say I did it you have to give some evidence that it occurred and we didn't have the bodies where is she she's I don't know right now is she is probably landfill right now okay if Jeff mailhot dumped his victims like trash The Remains should be at the local landfill on July 19th Cold Case detectives head out with a backhoe it's kind of hard to believe the magnitude of what's behind me but uh the size of the landfill the amount of trash that was here I just realizing I mean you're kind of in essence looking for a needle and a haystack I guess you can say for six days the team searches that comes up empty-handed on the seventh detective fairly unearths a small black bag wrapped in duct tape when I did open it it was kind of you know a little shock to me and I saw it I saw the remains of a scalp a crushed scalp I believe it was two forearms the skin was removed the bones were crushed but I was able to decipher what was what distinguished those amongst other body parts The Remains are eventually id'd as Stacy Goulet the last of Jeff malehut's victims the remains of Audrey Harris and Christine Dumont are never recovered on February 15th the defendant pleads guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of assault so he got life plus life plus 10 years that's how it broke down what he did was horrendous and to me I look at him he's just a monster I was satisfied for what he received I'm confident that he'll never see the light of day again and he'll spend the rest of his uh remaining years behind bars where he belongs on a cold Colorado morning a woman drives through Daniel's park she's a foster parent and she had several kids in the car and she looked out and appeared to be a female body in the fields she kept driving and she saw a road worker pulled over and told him what she saw and he decided to you know get out of there and call law enforcement Douglas County officers did arrive the investigators found a younger female probably at that point late teens early 20s lying on her back you can see that there are two sets of footprints going in and only one set coming out and they look like they were uh like a boot like a like a cowboy boot so we now know that the crime scene occurred here uh because this person is walking they're not being carried in and just dropped police and nearby Inglewood say a 21 year old woman was reported missing the night before the Inglewood Police Department had taken a missing persons report on January 16th a person that they took a report on visit Helene Brzezinski Helene went to high school in Hamilton Massachusetts a small town north of Boston she very much wanted to be part of the school and part of different organizations very much into drama very much into the school spirit she was into poetry she was into singing she had a beautiful voice she was the youngest of three children and her mom and dad especially her dad always called her baby as a college senior in 1979 she picked up and moved again this time to Colorado where she interned at a radio station it was a cold day and it looked like it was going to snow Eline came in the news booth and said it's starting to snow outside and I'm a little concerned about my bus ride home and she said could I leave a little bit early if I need to I said if you'll wait 15 minutes I'll give you a ride home I said I'd feel a lot better if you let me take you home and she thought about it for a minute and she said no I think I'll just ride the bus so she left I left the station that night to go home which was about 6 15. the phone rang about 8 30 or 9 o'clock and it was Helene's aunt and she said Helene has not come home yet do you know if she went someplace that I'm not aware of and I said no she left the station right around six o'clock said she was going to catch the bus and go straight home my best friend was a captain and he said we just had a call from Douglas County that they found a body of a young female and they want you to go out and see if you can identify it I I just knew this had to be her this was the only reported missing young female I just sick in my stomach I didn't want to go to the scene and identify the body but didn't have any choice we drove down to the location I had to get out and walk out into the snowy field but as soon as I got to the body I know it was her I instantly knew it was her it was the worst thing I ever had to do and uh it's never left my mind the coroner identified that she had been stabbed nine times in the back cause of death was from loss of blood and both of her lungs had collapsed the Pathologists were able to confirm that she was sexually assaulted they were able to find some fluid some dry fluid could possibly be saliva or it could be semen so they took samples of it and uh they preserved it the way that she was murdered does give an indication that this is a crime of passion and so that sometimes leads to an individual whom I know her we were told that the brutality of the murder it was with such rage that there was an opportunity for it to be someone that she knew it seemed personal but she's brand new to town she didn't have friends outside of the radio station I was contacted by several investigators after the day that Helene was found and and they wanted all the information I could give them about people that worked for me people in the radio station anybody she had come in contact with or if there was anybody I thought that might want to harm her aunt and uncle they were the only people that she had she had no one else and her sphere of Interest other than what she had developed for a very short period of time of two weeks at her internship unfortunately nobody panned out we put out a ten thousand dollar reward for any information we ran stories on the air asking people to come forward a lady contacted law enforcement she had saw a vehicle parked on the side of road in the location that Helene's body was found we saw a male suspect that was appeared to be kneeling down by the the rear of the vehicle and looked toward her and the hazards were on investigators used hypnosis and a crime scene sketch artist to develop a composite of a suspect that she thought she had seen they have a composite of this white male uh with you know thick hair kind of parted to the side with the mustache but it was aired and uh nothing ever came of it I made a promise to her parents that I would not rest until we found out who why how and get the answers for them anything new that happened in forensic science anything new that happened investigations she was on top of it she was searching it she was trying to find an answer to whoever killed her friend Helene in 1980 that DNA wasn't useful but decades later investigators have new tools that might help identify a lean's killer we gave them DNA of our suspect to create from that genetic data a family tree detectives build the branches of that tree using commercial genealogy sites like ancestry.com or 23andMe they simply run DNA from the crime scene through those sites looking for anyone with even partial DNA matches based on the center Morgans Santa Morgans is a unit for measuring DNA you and I may not be related at all so there be no cinemorgans if you and I were siblings it would be a very high number investigators work on the DNA sample and the genealogy sites for weeks and they finally get a promising lead we found who we thought was the mother of the person that did this horrible act in Douglas County she was the mother of multiple kids but the women could be thrown out right away they didn't commit this crime because it was a male sample it was a semen sample but by all accounts and all records she didn't have any boys when detectives questioned the woman's relatives they get one step closer to the truth they discover she'd given up two sons for adoption my genealogist and this detective dug deeper and what they came up with was the very old newspaper article about a reunion between this woman and her son and in that article they mentioned another son now we knew she had two boys we were able to eliminate one of the sons very quickly because his DNA was already in the CODIS DNA system and was no Mass the younger brother that we focused on his name was Curtis Allen White Mr White had committed a rape before 1980 he had gone to prison for that rape in fact he used a knife this is long before DNA so there was no DNA database for him to go into he served a very short sentence for such a violent crime and then he paroled to Colorado he was out here during the time that Helene he came here in 1979 and was out here during the time that Helene would have been murdered so now we're we're feeling like okay this this could be our guy we check his fingerprints and they come back to a guy named James Curtis Clinton down in Florida so detectives follow up on that and James Curtis Clinton is arrested in 1998 for domestic violence and once they send the booking photo to us when it was compared to the composite drawing that was given to us by a lady under hypnosis in 1980 were almost identical a young woman Colorado in 1980. and we want to um I want to show you a picture of her and see if you recognize [Applause] I think I want to turn now you see him look at it and his demeanor changed investigators are now certain they are face to face with haleem's killer we actually do have one for your arrest for first degree murder for what first degree murder and kidnapping that's what we've got the wrong guy we actually have your DNA again for that honor when the sergeant said your semen was found on her and in her he kind of paused and just said oh I think that was a very pivotal moment uh in Mr Clinton's heart so at this point you are after arrest we're gonna be turning you over to the custody of the County Sheriff's Office at this point where he'll be held without not at the extradition beliefs arrest James Clinton on the spot police bring Clinton to Colorado to face murder charges during the flight he opens up about that night in 1980. remember what you were wearing the cowboy boots what made her lean the the right target he said he saw Helene stand up to get off the bus he made a u-turn and as she's crossing the street he shows her the knife she says I see it he walks over puts his arm around her and says come with me and ties her hands behind her back with uh the strap from her purse she didn't tell me about herself she asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was kidnapping her money and she said well my parents don't have any money you know stuff like that I didn't tell her what I was going to be doing until we got into that good job we just talked about in six hours on a plane I mean anything and everything and there was nothing that was off limits and you know one thing that we asked several times was did you commit any other crimes and did you commit any other sex assaults or rapes or murders or anything and it was adamant that he didn't he had his mind that he was going to crap a girl and he was going to kidnap her and rape her that was his plan it was a relief but there's never closure on something that's so heinous like this James Clinton pleads guilty in a Colorado courtroom 63 year old Clinton is sentenced to life in prison it will be eligible for parole after 20 years [Music]

Channel: A&E

Views: 1,868,781

Keywords: a&e, aetv, a&e tv, ae, a&e television, a&e shows, a and e, a+e, a&e full episodes, the first 48, crime, true crime, crime investigation, solving crime, police, detectives, attorneys, police procedure, cold case files, cold case, murder investigation, true crime show, cold case files new episodes, watch cold case files, Episode 8, cold case files scenes, cold case files clips, cold case files episodes, murder, homicide, unsolved murders, cold cases, unsolved crimes, dna, death, confess

Id: OJDtVqH1irs

Length: 60min 11sec (3611 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023